"PACER normally carries an eight cents per page fee, however, by accessing from one of the seventeen libraries, users may search and download data for free."

And:

"The two accounts were responsible for downloading more than eighteen million pages with an approximate value of $1.5 million."

~18MM pages at $0.08/page ~= $1.5 million

So downloading a document is stealing printing fees from the courts, apparently.

My personal favorite part of the file so far:

"The Administrative Office of the U.S. Courts reported that the PACER system was being inundated with requests. One request was being made every three seconds."

I actually applied for a programming job with the Federal Courts in San Antonio about a decade ago when I was desperate for work. Cattle-call interview with ~100 easy questions, then they'd call you back that afternoon for a panel interview if you did well. I was criticized for dressing "too casual", despite wearing $400 worth of new clothes I couldn't afford. Apparently, suits are needed for programming, which also involves crawling around courtrooms installing equipment. Got the job offer a few days later for $55K/year. I mentioned that the newspaper ad said the position paid $78K, and politely attempted to negotiate. Five minutes later, I got an email saying they were rescinding the offer. Classy folks.

Think of it like a company selling GNU software. There's nothing prohibiting that, even though once someone has it, they are free to redistribute it for free.

The claim that the docs were worth 1.5 million dollars is based on the arbitrary price set for access to PACER, not any underlying value of the documents.